7 Tips for Maximising Floor Space

There’s no shortage of practical applications for interior design, but one of the most sought after is unquestionably optimisation of floor space. Feeling constricted by smaller floorplans is common, but thankfully, it’s a well-tread area of office planning. Today, we’re going to run through some tips to help inform you when maximising your floor space.

Where to start with office space strategy

Before we get into the list, it’s necessary to cover the importance of spatial design in the context of an overall office layout. Knowing your floor plans’ end goals is always the first step of optimising it. A company should know what it plans to achieve – whether this is lowered costs, creating extra room for a growing workforce, etc.

It’s also worth noting that altering your office plan to better fit its environment is a huge opportunity to make a number of other efficiency improvements – you may find along the way that it makes more sense to translate your current layout into a modern format – an open agile-office plan, for example. Taking opportunities to modernise your workplace pays off in the long run, as updating the work environment to better serve younger generations entering the workforce is only going to keep growing in importance.

1. Understand your technology requirements

Ever since offices were first designed, they’ve been designed around the technology they host. Keeping your floorplan appropriate for the tech and equipment you utilise requires some foresight – desks no longer need to be structured around telephone jacks, for example. Try to think ahead in order to avoid tethering your layout to technology that might become obsolete within your office’s lifespan.

The easiest way to do this is to talk to your IT department, if you have one. If you are able to fully understand your present and future needs, you’ll be able to implement an office space strategythat you won’t need to completely alter after a year or two.

2. Know your requirements

In a similar vein, knowing what your requirements are outside of technology is a huge step forward for your spatial planning. Having a comprehensive plan will allow your floor space to adapt to you and your staff, not the reverse.

Say, for example, you have a workplace that highly values collaboration – you need to factor in dedicated conversation spaces. If you lack the floor space to have fully independent meeting rooms, it could be worth exploring new concepts, like opening your main floor up by removing walls or cubicles.

3. Know your requirements

It’s easier to imagine the perfect space than it is to actually create it. Reformulating your office layout requires a budget – you need to be able to efficiently bring ideas from the conceptual stage into reality, and knowing what your investment will achieve is a good way to streamline that process.

Note that your budget shouldn’t just cover costs – it should also cover time. Time is – for many – a more valuable resource, and your budget should integrate with a timeline for your project, as the two things are unavoidably linked.

4. Structure according to your day-to-day

How are your departments laid out? How often do they interact with each other? Do two or three departments need to be neighbours, due to their high frequency of collaboration? It’s vital to keep this in mind to avoid completing your changes and realising you’ve made things unnecessarily difficult for a particular team within your staff.

5. Structure according to work type

While you are considering how to best map out your departments, you should also take a closer look at what each of them does. Your sales team may require a completely different set-up to your management team – if they spend most of their time on the phone, will it be too distracting for other departments for them to take calls at their desks? Knowing your employee’s workflow is the best tool you have for laying out an optimised floorplan.

6. Plan to grow

All office design should be overestimated in terms of space – if you’re needing to restructure so you can fit everyone, don’t stop there. It’s always worth going a little beyond, and make extra room available for growth so you can avoid the costs of doing the exact thing again every year or so. This is especially important for smaller companies, as they are much more liable to suddenly require several hires at once.

7. Plan for storage

While your design should be people-first, it’s important to remember you’re not designing for people alone – you also need to find room for their things! Every industry has different storage solution needs, but no matter what industry you’re in, you need to account for it in your floorplan. Is it worth downsizing your filing cabinets so they fit beneath desks? Do all your employees need to keep track of files? Asking questions such as these will give you a clear idea of what needs to be done in terms of storage.

8. Improve your business with good interior spatial design

While these tips are a great start, the fastest path to an office interior that works for you – not the other way around – is to call the professionals. DB Interiors has over 50 years’ experience in the field, and have the expertise to help you plan and execute a new fit-out for your office. Whether you’re interested in agile office design, break out area design, or just some new chairs – we can help. Book your free discovery call today!